Perhaps GlaxoSmithKline should spend some time developing a new drug, Garniex, specifically designed to tackle the more distressing effects of corporate hubris.

Back in February, chief executive JP Garnier issued a thinly veiled attack on competitors such as AstraZeneca, which had just cut thousands of jobs in response to growing competition from generic drug manufacturers and the loss of key drugs through research failures and the loss of patents.

“We don’t think that is good management,” he said, adding that Glaxo was committed to good cost management “all the time”.

Yesterday, it seems, the shoe was on the other foot as Dr Garnier announced plans to cut more than 5,000 of Glaxo’s own staff for similar reasons.

Of course, much has happened since then - not least the safety controversy surrounding Glaxo’s diabetes drug Avandia, which led to a steep slide in sales of its second-top selling drug and dragged the company into the midst of a bruising political battle in the United States over the role and powers of that country’s regulatory regime.

In one sense, Dr Garnier, who is set to retire next May, should be congratulated for taking such tough decisions now rather than later. The realisation that, despite the relative strength of the company’s pipeline of new drugs Glaxo is not so different from its rivals after all, seems to have come to him relatively quickly and for that, shareholders should be thankful.

But while Dr Garnier’s prescription was indeed vital to restore flagging confidence in the group, his restructuring drive was also the easy part.

The really awkward questions for Glaxo, and for many of the drug giants’ peers, remain unanswered and it will be up to Dr Garnier’s successor, Andrew Witty, to ponder them alone.

With the share price still performing dismally, they include whether or not the company’s conventional Big Pharma business model can really survive without more fundamental changes, whether to sell off its consumer healthcare arm or spin off some of its research or vaccines business.

Perhaps the toughest challenge of all facing Mr Witty is that, however useful it might be, Garniex these days would swallow up huge amounts of time and money in both its development and in gaining regulatory approval, only to fall at the final hurdle.

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